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Experiential learning at China Folk House retreat

Special to the Catholic Herald

Students build walls the China Folk House in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. COURTESY

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John Flower, a history teacher and director of Sidwell Friends School’s Chinese Studies program, presents at the China Folk House in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. COURTESY

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Students paint the China Folk House in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. COURTESY

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Students garden the China Folk House in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. COURTESY

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St. Paul VI Catholic High School’s students studying the Chinese language explored Catholicism in Yunnan, China, through an experiential learning project. Led by Chinese teacher Liangyan Wang, this design-based project collaborated with Dali Tan of Northern Virginia Community College and allowed students to visit the China Folk House in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

The project provided students the opportunity to connect and collaborate with other learning communities, explore the rich diversity of cultural traditions in China, and promoted a deeper understanding of different aspects of Chinese culture and religions. This was achieved by encouraging students to investigate the cultural heritage rooted in rural life in Yunnan, China. During the most recent diocesan high school professional development, Wang invited Lisa Li’s Chinese classes at Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria to join the field trip. This is the first time that Chinese language students from the two diocesan high schools met and collaborated outside the classroom.

A Tibetan Catholic family built a farmhouse near Cizhong (Yunnan, China) in 1989. The house was preserved and relocated from China to West Virginia by John Flower, a history teacher and director of Sidwell Friends School’s Chinese Studies program in Washington. Flower, who has a doctorate in modern Chinese history, taught students about the village of Cizhong. He explained how this place has a unique history as the home to a Catholic church built by French missionaries who lived there at the turn of the 20th century. Following his brief lecture, students were placed into four different activity-based learning groups: architecture and construction; planting and gardening; farming vegetables; and traditional Chinese arts.

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